“If this was a movie, the camera angle would be somewhere near the floor of the car, looking up at Serge’s hand …”
“Serge,” said Coleman. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking to yourself.”
“I was? What was I saying?”
“Something about a movie camera.”
“I thought the narration was just playing inside my head. Oh well … Serge’s hand reached, slow motion, as the camera zoomed on the 69-cent butane lighter being placed gently in the middle of the dashboard. Then the film sped back up as Serge slammed the door, and he and Coleman drove away in their 1971 AMC Javelin … Cut! Print!”
ROUTE Al A
A two-tone Javelin sped south on the part of the highway below St. Augustine that ran against the shore. The sky was gray, extra-choppy surf. Serge grooved on the perpetual rhythm of large, rolling waves that began doming hundreds of yards out and crashed into the beach with bursts of foam and salty mist. Ahead, a disciplined line of eight pelicans rode the stout wind, gliding along the edge of the road at a velocity only slightly slower than traffic. Serge passed them at window level, saluting eight times. They crossed the Matanzas River.
“Oh my God!” said Serge. “Look!”
A compound of white buildings appeared on the sea side of the road, like a small campus or research institute.
“Coleman!” Serge reached over and shook his shoulder. “Are you looking?”
“Yeah, buildings.” Coleman stared back down, diagnosing the engineering flaw in his makeshift, toilet-paper-tube bong that was flaking apart in a bowl of water. “All that work for one shitty hit.” He pulled limp pieces of cardboard from his mouth.
“Someone’s fixing up Marineland!” Serge let off the gas. “She’s saved from the executioner! Where’s a parking space?”
Story punched the back of his seat.” You’re not stopping!”
“Of course we’re stopping. It’s Marineland, the world’s first ocean-arium, 1938.” He hit a turn signal for the parking lot and grabbed his camera.
She hit the seat again. “Keep driving! I told you I have an appointment at the dance club. Someone in this car has to make money.”
“You can strip anytime-“
Swat.
“Ow!”
“I am not stripping.”
“Okaaaaay, we’ll keep going. But just this once because I hate people who miss appointments.” Serge stepped on the gas and snapped a quick photo as they went by. “But hit me one more time …”
“And you’ll what?”
“I’ll… stop someplace and take lots and lots of pictures.”
The Javelin continued south. Beverly Beach, Flagler Beach, Ormond-by-the-Sea. Sparsely populated miles of unruined view. More waves, fried-fish shacks, sea oats, and an old beach shop with colorful, inflatable rafts stacked out front, except today they were lashed tightly to a post, flapping in the near gale.
The sky grew darker. Coleman switched to joints. “Thought this was the Sunshine State.”
“Point?” said Serge.
“It’s been an odd-looking week. First all that smoke from those forest fires in Georgia. Then cloudy every other day.”
“I dig it,” said Serge. “These rare gray afternoons evoke a sweet, childhood melancholy in my soul, like when it rained in kindergarten and we had to stay inside and do crafts with library paste and pipe cleaners and buttons, and I made the best project in the whole class, an ultra-powerful rubber-band zip gun, but the teacher gave me a zero because I got her in the eye with a button.”
The road entered a strip of vintage seaside amusement. Arcades, gondola rides, short space needle, tunnel under the boardwalk for people to drive out onto the sand. And a sign:
WELCOME TO DAYTONA BEACH
Serge looked up the road and hit his blinker. “I have to make a stop.”
“No!” shouted Story.
“It’ll be lickety-split. Already know what I want.”
Just past the 7-Eleven stood a large building with racing flags. The Javelin pulled into the parking lot of a NASCAR souvenir superstore.
Serge worked quickly through the aisles, avoiding usual knick-knack distraction by holding palms to the sides of his eyes like blinders. He bypassed officially licensed key chains, bobble-heads and Zippo lighters, finally arriving at a giant display of full-size magnetic door signs with the stock-car numbers and fonts of all the most popular drivers. He grabbed a pair with the giant number “2.”
The cashier rang him up. “You’re a Kurt Busch fan?” i,
“No, I came twice.”
Serge returned to the parking lot and slapped his magnets on the sides of the Javelin. They continued down A1A.
“What’s that place over there?” asked Coleman. “Looks like a giant ship.”
“Supposed to.” Serge grabbed his camera. “The venerable Streamline Hotel, grande dame of old Daytona, where people lined the rooftop to watch auto races when they used to hold them down here on the beach.” Click, click, click. “I’ve often toyed with the idea of living there.”
“Don’t you mean ‘stay’?”
Serge shook his head. “I’m fascinated by the concept of people who live in hotels. Like Howard Hughes’s top-floor place in Vegas, or that rich old woman who spent years in a suite at The Breakers.”
